Necrophage

Signal Received

Jacob saw the ashen look on Larry’s face after he told him the good news, and asked, “What’s with the messed up look on your face, I thought you’d be happy for us. I mean I am gonna do the right thing and get married and all.”

Larry gathered his thoughts, and swallowed. He tried to maintain eye contact but wasn’t successful. “Jacob, did you know that Eric Larson was here today? I don’t know a nice way to put this, so I’m just going to tell you plainly, the SETI program is being dropped, effective Monday. Mr. Larson has informed me that Friday will be your last day here at the center. I know this is sudden and believe me, I hated to be the one to tell you this. There is going to be a rather substantial severance package, and I of course will give you a wonderful reference for your next endeavor.”

Larry looked at Jacob for a response. Jacob looked at Larry blankly and remained silent.

“Jacob, say something! I’m sorry this is happening to you, but don’t just sit there! Don’t you have anything to say?”

“Hell yeah I have something to say,” Jacob shouted, “This is so much bullshit and you know it! How can you after 10 seconds of me telling you of what should be the happiest day of my life, tell me something that turns it 180 degrees around into the worst day of my life. Dammit, Larry, I have been here for 4 years, straight out of college, and I looked up to you! Not only as my boss and mentor, but as my friend!”

“ Jacob, do you somehow think this is easy for me?”, Larry stammered, “I have no choice. The program is being shut down, your other duties will be shifted to other workers, increasing their work load, and some of that work will go to me as well. I have the thankless task of telling them their work load has just increased.”

“I know you’re upset Jacob, I tried, and would, do anything to keep you, and if it was in my power, you would stay here for life. But it’s not. If there’s anything that you need, ask me, I have some other connections I can call, and see if I can get you placed somewhere else within the field.”

Jacob spoke softly, “Yeah you’re right boss, I’m sorry. I know it’s not your fault, it was stupid of me to think it was your fault. I would appreciate anything you could do for me. Do I need to clean out my desk right now?”

“No, you can work out the week, there’s still a few projects I know you need to wrap up. Also, this way we get to work together a little bit longer before I head over to Mauna Kea.”

“Oh that’s right, you’re visiting Professor Pamarang. That’d be a fun place to work! See if you can hook me up working there, I’d love to go to Hawaii!”, Jacob laughed, “Hell, this may not be so bad after all.”

“Of course, Jacob, I’ll talk to him. I don’t know what your chances are though,” Larry said jokingly, “but it’s worth a shot! Anyways let’s get back in there before Olivia wonders just what we’re doing in here.”

“Good idea, but hey, I’m glad it was you who told me.”

Larry got up and approached the door, and said “Now laugh like I told you a funny joke, I don’t want Olivia or anyone to know about this until Friday.”

Larry opened the door, with a smile on his face, and Jacob said, “So the girl said I’m only gonna charge you $75 because the second guy only has one leg!” and laughed while walking into the room. Larry followed, with a smile on his face and said, “Son, you have a crazy sense of humor!”

Jacob tried to keep the smile on his face as he looked around, hoping no one saw through his facade that was hiding the melancholy that he felt welling up inside him. As he looked around the office and the equipment, it brought dozens of memories to the fore-front of his mind. It saddened him greatly to see that he had to leave the place that was a second home to him. He really hoped to have some kind of impact in his field before he left here. He went to his desk, sat down and turned on his computer. He was glancing over the logs, and noticed a particular anomaly.The same signal he had seen 3 times last night , he now noticed there were 245 distinct events. His heart raced as he saw this and ran a diagnostic test. 30 seconds later the test came back clean. Checking back with the logs, he saw the event count was now up to 315, no wait, 512... now 750... now over 1000. “This is impossible, this can’t be happening, what the Hell?!”, Jacob said. Jacob got up and quickly looked around for Larry, not seeing him, he quickly walked over to Olivia. Olivia was signing some papers and didn’t see him at first. “Where’s Larry?!”, he shouted. When Olivia didn’t answer quick enough, he shouted, “Larry, dammit! I need him NOW!”

“What’s the matter, hot shot, you looking to brag about your new high score on Solitaire? Or is it Mind Sweeper, right now?”, Olivia joked.

“Dammit Olivia, I’m not joking, where is Larry?!”

Olivia saw the serious look on his face, and said, “Okay, okay, calm down! He’s in the cafeteria getting some coffee, what’s the matter?”

Jacob didn’t answer as he ran off to the cafeteria, searching for Larry. He saw Larry getting some coffee and grabbed Larry by the arm. “Whoa boy! What’s the matter with you, you look like you just saw a ghost! What’s the matter?”

“Larry, you have to see this NOW!, Jacob said, “Remember that signal I had 3 hits on last night? Well, there’s more. A lot more.”

“Okay, well that is exciting. Nothing for almost 10 years, and then 2 occurrences in one night, so how many are we talking about this time? 4 or 5?”, Larry joked.

“It started climbing to over a 1000 events since we were talking, you have to come see this now.”

“Are you sure?! Did you run the diagnostic test and... “

“Of course”, Jacob interrupted, “I know my job, we have to call Hawaiian for confirmation now!”

Larry and Jacob ran to Jacob’s desk, and looked the logs. The event counter was at 7000 events and climbing. Larry brushed Jacob out of the way, and initiated a level 3 diagnostic.

“I told you I already did that!”, Jacob said. Larry ignored him and waited methodically for the test to complete. all the while keeping an eye on the event counter. 30 seconds later, with green all across the board from the test, Larry keyed in the command to bring the 150 foot array online. He entered the coordinates in and waited to see if he received an echo signal from the second array.  A few moments later he got his confirmation. My God! It’s happening, we have to call Hawaii! Larry stood up and said, “Jacob! Get Professor...”

“Pamarang... on the phone for confirmation... yeah I’m way ahead of you!”, said Jacob.

Jacob was on the phone as Larry walked over to him, when all of the sudden, all the power went out.

“Oh shit!”, Jacob said, followed by a excited  scream in the background.

*************************************************************************************************************